The 2023 iteration of the Cine-Excess conference marked the publication of the revised edition of Barbara Creed’s truly seminal text, The Monstrous-Feminine, thirty years after its first edition. It is no over-statement to say that Creed’s work revitalised the study of horror cinema, its traditions and representations. In so doing, the book also encouraged a new generation of scholars, many of whom have gone on to become regular attendees at Cine-Excess over the years. It was, then, an honour to welcome Barbara Creed as the Keynote speaker for the 2023 event, where she reflected on her work, its impact and continued relevance; and we are truly privileged to exclusively publish a version of her paper as the opening article in this, the sixth issue of the Cine-Excess journal. Additionally, we are also delighted to include a streamed interview that Barbara Creed conducted with Australian filmmaker Ursula Dabrowsky, for the Cine-Excess 2023 premiere of The Devil’s Work, which indicates the pertinence of the monstrous-feminine methodology to contemporary horror cinema.
By taking Creed’s work as its inspiration, the 2023 event, Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject placed the cinematic, social and cultural significance of the possessed, supernatural and unclean body onscreen at its (dark) heart, focusing on landmark scholarly texts as well as anniversaries and restorations of cult cinema classics that deal with this subject. We are delighted to reflect that theme in this journal issue, with a selection of peer-reviewed articles derived from the many outstanding papers delivered at the online conference and in-person symposium we staged in Birmingham in October 2023.
A number of articles, many from a younger generation of academics influenced by Creed’s work, interrogate recent horror and cult cinema from across the globe. Joy Schaefer examines the Hollywood box-office juggernaut M3GAN (2023) through the representation of the abject woman-as-monster, not just through the main character of the unmaternal Gemma, but via a nuanced examination of the Black character of Tess. Marine Galine and Lumi Etienne both reflect on motherhood (and siblinghood), ecology and trauma in their examinations of Ireland’s The Hole in the Ground (2019) and Finland’s Hatching (2022), respectively. And Rohini Chakraborty uses her study of the mainstream Bollywood production Stree (2018), as the basis for a reflection on how a regionally specific film can inform a wider discussion of sexual violence in society.
A number of contributors also put films about the female monster front and centre in their work. Elinor Doliver considers the figure of ‘the anti-mother’ in contemporary horror cinema, with particular reference to Barbarian (2022) and IT: Chapter Two (2019), amongst others. In her examination of Julia Ducournau’s twisted female coming-of-age fable Raw (2016) Iliana Cuellar considers vegetarianism and cannibalism as two extremes of an ‘ethics of consumption’. And the ‘monstrous’ character of Julia is central to Maximillian Breckwoldt’s illuminating dissection of Hellraiser (1987) and its sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), wherein they discuss the films in relation to the emerging AIDS crisis of the late 1980s. As an addendum to Breckwoldt’s submission, we are proud to include a streamed interview with Doug ‘Pinhead’ Bradley that was exclusively commissioned for Cine-Excess 2023 within this journal issue. Additionally, we are presenting a separate streamed interview with another Hellraiser star: Nicholas ‘The Chatterer’ Vince, whose own documentary I Am Monsters also screened at the event.
Beyond Hellraiser, two articles approach Creed’s influence from the direction of films which were themselves celebrating notable anniversaries in 2023. The thirtieth anniversary of Hocus Pocus (1993) and its belated 2022 sequel is the focus of Emily Smith’s reflection on the changing relationship on the nature of the abject between the witch and the concept of the abject in the intervening years, almost exactly those spanning publication of Creed’s first and revised editions of The Monstrous-Feminine. And in her article exploring the archetype of the ‘faux father’, Lakkaya Palmer centres her argument on case studies of The Omen (1976) and, especially, The Exorcist (1973), fifty years after its release.
Our closing Reviews section expands the monstrous-feminine concept to include those women filmmakers who create monsters, specifically by profiling Heidi Honeycutt’s acclaimed new book I Spit on Your Celluloid. This section also includes a review of related genre content exhibited at the 2024 Far East Film Festival before returning to Barbara Creed’s work for the closing review. Here, journal co-editor Daniel Sheppard offers reflections on Creed’s 2023 update of The Monstrous-Feminine. In so doing, it fittingly closes out an issue that both celebrates the work of an esteemed colleague and shows how that work continues to inform and develop emerging horror and cult studies scholarship from across the world.
John Atkinson, Xavier Mendik and Daniel Sheppard
December 2024.
By taking Creed’s work as its inspiration, the 2023 event, Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject placed the cinematic, social and cultural significance of the possessed, supernatural and unclean body onscreen at its (dark) heart, focusing on landmark scholarly texts as well as anniversaries and restorations of cult cinema classics that deal with this subject. We are delighted to reflect that theme in this journal issue, with a selection of peer-reviewed articles derived from the many outstanding papers delivered at the online conference and in-person symposium we staged in Birmingham in October 2023.
A number of articles, many from a younger generation of academics influenced by Creed’s work, interrogate recent horror and cult cinema from across the globe. Joy Schaefer examines the Hollywood box-office juggernaut M3GAN (2023) through the representation of the abject woman-as-monster, not just through the main character of the unmaternal Gemma, but via a nuanced examination of the Black character of Tess. Marine Galine and Lumi Etienne both reflect on motherhood (and siblinghood), ecology and trauma in their examinations of Ireland’s The Hole in the Ground (2019) and Finland’s Hatching (2022), respectively. And Rohini Chakraborty uses her study of the mainstream Bollywood production Stree (2018), as the basis for a reflection on how a regionally specific film can inform a wider discussion of sexual violence in society.
A number of contributors also put films about the female monster front and centre in their work. Elinor Doliver considers the figure of ‘the anti-mother’ in contemporary horror cinema, with particular reference to Barbarian (2022) and IT: Chapter Two (2019), amongst others. In her examination of Julia Ducournau’s twisted female coming-of-age fable Raw (2016) Iliana Cuellar considers vegetarianism and cannibalism as two extremes of an ‘ethics of consumption’. And the ‘monstrous’ character of Julia is central to Maximillian Breckwoldt’s illuminating dissection of Hellraiser (1987) and its sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), wherein they discuss the films in relation to the emerging AIDS crisis of the late 1980s. As an addendum to Breckwoldt’s submission, we are proud to include a streamed interview with Doug ‘Pinhead’ Bradley that was exclusively commissioned for Cine-Excess 2023 within this journal issue. Additionally, we are presenting a separate streamed interview with another Hellraiser star: Nicholas ‘The Chatterer’ Vince, whose own documentary I Am Monsters also screened at the event.
Beyond Hellraiser, two articles approach Creed’s influence from the direction of films which were themselves celebrating notable anniversaries in 2023. The thirtieth anniversary of Hocus Pocus (1993) and its belated 2022 sequel is the focus of Emily Smith’s reflection on the changing relationship on the nature of the abject between the witch and the concept of the abject in the intervening years, almost exactly those spanning publication of Creed’s first and revised editions of The Monstrous-Feminine. And in her article exploring the archetype of the ‘faux father’, Lakkaya Palmer centres her argument on case studies of The Omen (1976) and, especially, The Exorcist (1973), fifty years after its release.
Our closing Reviews section expands the monstrous-feminine concept to include those women filmmakers who create monsters, specifically by profiling Heidi Honeycutt’s acclaimed new book I Spit on Your Celluloid. This section also includes a review of related genre content exhibited at the 2024 Far East Film Festival before returning to Barbara Creed’s work for the closing review. Here, journal co-editor Daniel Sheppard offers reflections on Creed’s 2023 update of The Monstrous-Feminine. In so doing, it fittingly closes out an issue that both celebrates the work of an esteemed colleague and shows how that work continues to inform and develop emerging horror and cult studies scholarship from across the world.
John Atkinson, Xavier Mendik and Daniel Sheppard
December 2024.